Words of Questionable Wisdom: What If Civil War Happened In the Real World: Part 4
By Paul Sebert
Earlier today in the front office of Comics Nexus”¦
PAUL: Boss”¦ boss”¦ I just had this hilarious idea for my Civil War parody.
DARON: Um, isn’t it a bit late for that since the story is more than half over?
PAUL: Uh”¦. Yes my evil overlord I know it’s a bit late but you see that’s just part of the joke, since the 4th and 5th issues got delayed.
DARON: Odd that I’m not laughing”¦
PAUL: So anyway I was thinking the political humor was getting laid a little thin, so I thought I’d have “What If Civil War Happened In the Real World Part 4″ open up right after the big fight showdown in issue 3. See I was thinking it would be funny if it turned into a big dumb slugfest just like Infinite Crisis”¦ only instead of an evil Superboy Prime it’s like an evil Thor. No better yet”¦ it’s AN EVIL THOR CLONE!
DARON: But, isn’t that exactly”¦
PAUL: Oh”¦ and the evil Thor Clone, he ends up killing, the black superhero that no one’s seen in like 20 years. What’s his name Black Goliath?
DARON: Hello? How is that funny when that’s what they actually/”¦
PAUL: Wait”¦ you’re saying they gave the guy a new name and costume a few months ago? See that’s what would make the killing off of him even more ridiculous. It would be as if Mark Millar would be giving us a perfect example of how wasteful pointless deathscenes are.
DARON: Um”¦I didn’t say anything about it.
PAUL: Oh and the punch line”¦ since Goliath was killed off while he was at super size, they like have to dig a 50 foot grave! Do you imagine how absurd that would look! Dear god, I’m sure Millar has something much cooler in store for when the real issue #4 comes out.
DARON: I give up.
PAUL: Uh”¦ wait you’re saying that Civil War #4 is out, now?!
DARON: That’s not exactly what I said, I said”¦
PAUL: Noooooo!! My parody is ruined! Ruined! Damn You Mark Millar! WHY?!!!!!!
DARON: I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that he did it in fact just to spite YOU.
PAUL: Fine”¦ I’ll find something for a column this week”¦ *Sobs*
DARON: Better late than never”¦
We Now Return To What If Civil War Happened In The Real World, Already In Progress
Previously”¦
After the city of Stamford, Connecticut is destroyed by Nitro during a televised fight between the New Warriors, Tony Stark proposes a radical new governmental policy: a global war on Super-villains! Tony in the guise of Iron Man unveils the first step of his plan, an superhero invasion of Latveria to Captain America, who is appalled by the potential abuse of power and disastrous consequences. He however is unable to prevent Stark from presenting the grounds for war to the President of the United States and congress.
As the prospect of war loomed over the nation, the Super-hero community was forced to pick sides, as Captain America and Iron Man chose their respected teams. Iron Man later converged with top representatives from his team of on the threat posed by Doctor Doom. After struggling to explain exactly why the need to invade Latveria is so urgent, Stark reveals some shocking news: Doctor Doom has seemingly acquired the ultimate weapon of mass destruction: The Cosmic Cube! Captain America meanwhile goes out on a public crusade to speak out against the future war but finds himself lost in the mainstream media‘s 24 hour news cycle.
In a stunning move far too stunning for just the main series to fully contain Spider-Man unmasked while addressing the United Nations on evidence of Doom’s weapons. (See “What If Amazing Spider-Man #533 Happened In the Real World” in hypothetical comic shops now!) War is declared, and Doctor Doom’s dictator regime is brought down in less than the time it takes between two issues. Just as soon as it started major combat in Latveria seemed to be over”¦
But it soon becomes apparent that Tony Stark gravely underestimated the chaotic fallout of Doom’s upheaval as sectarian violence breaks out. Worse yet it still becomes apparent that reports of the true threat posed by Doom were in fact exaggerated as Doom’s cache of WMDs turned out to be a secret supply of Hostess Twinkies and Fruit Pies.
Now as chaos looms overseas, Tony Stark tries to keep his team together, while Captain America’s Anti-War heroes gather in secret trying to figure out how to respond.
MR. FANTASTIC: Well gentlemen, I believe that upon further review of the National Intelligence Committee report, along with the latest international news reports and my own assessments, it appears that our War in Latveria is”¦
IRON MAN: Mission Accomplished!
MR. FANTASTIC: I’m not sure how to put this politely Tony, but all of our pre-war intelligence has proven wrong, the war has proven to be a cause célèbre for aspiring super villains, villain teams world wide are recruiting at an alarming rate, civilian casualties in Latveria are skyrocketing, basic utilities supplied to Latverians are at pre-war levels and furthermore it seems that various tensions between ethnic subgroups of Latverians have resulted in senseless acts of sectarian violence.
IRON MAN: So”¦ Mission Accomplished?
MR. FANTASTIC: Furthermore funds meant to contribute to the reconstruction of Latveria have been misallocated on many levels costing taxpayers billions of dollars in the future. Improperly trained and lead heroes are getting killed and injured at ever-increasing rate. Finally we have reports that there are more people being tortured in Latveria now than during the period in which Doom was in charge.
IRON MAN: Very well then”¦ Mission Accomplished.
SPIDER-MAN: Gah! I can’t take this anymore. How can you keep saying that we’ve accomplished ANYTHING in Latveria when all possible evidence states that we’ve done nothing more than give people another reason to hate American Superheroes.
IRON MAN: Peter”¦ you don’t understand how politics works. See we’ve created a situation in Latveria that may very well prove impossible to resolve.
SPIDER-MAN: How is that possibly a good thing?
IRON MAN: Simple”¦ if the opposition asks us to pull American Heroes out of Latveria we’ll say they’re cowards who are weak on villains who want to “cut and run” from the problem. If they stay we’ll say that Captain America’s team is out of ideas.
SPIDER-MAN: Tony”¦ we’re talking about people’s lives here.
IRON MAN: Yes”¦ and so long as the villain attacks are overseas and not in the US and as long as we have Doom imprisoned people will feel safe.
SPIDER-MAN: But it’s a false sense of security!
IRON MAN: It’s the only sense of security anyone can offer.
SPIDER-MAN: But it’s completely dishonest”¦
IRON MAN: It’s not so much dishonest as”¦ incompletely true. Besides a good portion of the population quite simply doesn’t want to know the thrust. A third of our supporters still think Doctor Doom masterminded the incident in Stamford! Truth is subjective”¦
SPIDER-MAN: It’s not when we’ve inadvertently caused a Civil War in another country”¦ not when our own guys are torturing people.
IRON MAN: But it’s not a Civil War and we are not torturing people. You have to understand Peter saying such things would embolden our enemies.
SPIDER-MAN: So you’re saying that letting something bad happen isn’t as bad as admitting that something bad is happening.?
IRON MAN: Precisely”¦
MR. FANTASTIC: Tony”¦ considering the latest opinion polls, shifts in population, and media coverage I find it most likely that public support for this endeavor is going to erode at an inexorable rate.
IRON MAN: Fine we’ll instigate the base voter recruitment strategy X-12: Operation Scapegoat Gays and Mexican Immigrants!
NORTHSTAR: Oh dear”¦
ARAÑA: Crap!
Back at the underground hide-out of Captain America meets with his team of anti-war heroes.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Ok men, enough is enough. We’ve let Tony Stark and his cronies muck around with foreign policy for too long. Lets go over our plan to strike back.
FALCON: Well Luke Cage and Danny Rand are off filming an irreverent docu-comedy. Hercules is working about the talk radio circuits, Daredevil is doing a book tour while Patriot and Stature are off blogging.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: But they’re so young!
FALCON: “¦
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Uh”¦ blogging? Is that what the kids call “it” these days.
FALCON: *sighs* No.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Never-mind then”¦ Finally we have Cable voicing our cause on that debate show.
At a nearby television station.
CABLE So as you can see it’s plainly obvious that the continuation of this war will lead to the dystopian alternate post-apocalyptic future world that I come from.
BISHOP: Yes, but the war will prevent the very dystopian alternate post-apocalyptic future world that I come from. And my post-apocalyptic future world has giant robots!
CABLE Well mine has techno-organic viruses and atomic mutant spiders!
BISHOP: Well mine’s way worse, it’s got cyborg ninja assassins.
CABLE In my dystopian post-apocalyptic world, the only television program left on the air is The George Lopez show!
BISHOP: Ok”¦ you win.
We now return to our Anti-War heroes base”¦
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Alright, so everyone’s job is accounted for?
FALCON: What about Logan?
WOLVERINE: I’m just here to keep up sales.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Fine we have everything in place to wage a fully fledged ideological war of words with the other side.
WOLVERINE: Or we could just have a big fight scene.
CAPTAIN AMERICA: Hmmm”¦
NEXT TIME: THE INEVITABLE FIGHT SCENE! TO BE CONTINUED”¦ CONCLUDED”¦ MAYBE?!
